"Cars ready! Hurry up, ladies and gentlemen! Hurry up!"
And groups of loungers, starting from every direction, hastened gladly to take their places and resume their broken journey.
When we were again seated in the car, I repeated my question, "Did you ever see or hear from them again?"
"I never saw them again," she replied, "but we kept up a correspondence for a long time. The example of their lovely and pious lives exerted a wide-spread influence in Canada. Some years after the events I have related, a large estate in Scotland was left to them, from a distant relative, and they returned to that country. Their departure was deeply deplored by all their neighbors in the land of their adoption, and I have heard that since their increased means they have been active in advancing every good work, both in their Canadian home and in that to which they have returned."
I parted with sincere regret from my new friend at Toronto, which was the limit of my excursion.
Her wayside story had so impressed my memory that I indulged my pen in transcribing it. If it yields half the interest to others, at second hand, with which I received it from the actual participant, my labor will be amply rewarded.
THE CHURCH IN PARIS AND FRANCE.
Though France is a Catholic country, the humiliating fact that a considerable portion of its male population manifests a certain religious apathy, cannot well be disguised. This estrangement from the church is due to various causes, but mainly to the training received by the youth educated at those public institutions which monopolize the government patronage. The University of Paris largely influences all the public schools, and its authority extended at one time even over the establishments for bringing up infants. The female schools have, for various reasons, formed, to a limited extent, an exception, chiefly for the want of lay instructresses, which rendered it absolutely necessary to grant to the numerous orders of nuns more extensive privileges. The university, originally half Christian and half deistic, has lately sunk into the lowest materialism. Even among the teachers of the elementary schools there are many who have discarded, more or less openly, the Christian faith, and thereby set the pupils a most pernicious example. The secret and avowed foes of religion preponderate in the educational domain, and it is only with the utmost difficulty that Christians, or even deists, can be found for the different scientific faculties. In other respects, a marked improvement has, however, taken place since 1850, when the church was first allowed to exercise a more direct influence over the public schools, and some of the most obnoxious opponents of Christianity were removed from their educational trusts. Still more beneficial has been the concession of greater school facilities. The public institutions superintended by religious have doubled in numbers and extent, being at present attended by over 1,200,000 girls and 250,000 boys. In 1854, there were in France 825 private institutions, with 42,462 pupils, presided over by laymen; and 256 institutions, with 21,195 pupils, under the charge of religious. In 1865, the number of lay institutions amounted to only 657, with 43,007 pupils, while the religious had increased to 278, with 34,897 pupils. While the former gained, therefore, within eleven years only 545 pupils, the latter gained 13,702. Nor is this all. The schools conducted by laymen have advanced equally in a religious and a scientific point of view, and are now no longer so inferior as formerly to those conducted by religious. The decided progress which the church has made in France during the last ten or twelve years is principally owing to the growth of religious instruction Unfortunately, the university still remains unchanged, and many a pious youth is lost when he enters one of the faculties. It is otherwise with reference to the lyceums and colleges, where the religious have secured a greater influence over the pupils, though rationalists and sceptics still continue to fill some of the chairs. Three years ago, 29,852 pupils attended the lyceums, and 32,495 the colleges—a total of 62,347, which shows a gain of 19,228 pupils since 1854. This increase is accounted for by the support which these institutions receive from the state. In 1854, the number of lyceums was 53; in 1865, it was 86.
In about the same period of time, the Brothers of the Christian Schools (Frères de la Doctrine Chretiènne) had founded 864 educational establishments in France, 16 in the States of the Church, 13 in Italy, 42 in Belgium, 2 in Switzerland, 2 in Austria, 3 in Prussia, 2 in England, 2 in Egypt, 4 in Turkey, 19 in Canada, 29 in the United States, 8 in India, and 2 in Ecuador—making a total of 1043 establishments with 8822 brothers. This number has multiplied since. In France alone, there are now over 900 establishments and 6000 brothers. In more recent days, many similar orders have been organized, like that founded by Lammenais, the brother of the apostate priest, which is exclusively intended for the agricultural education of boys, and counts already thirty-odd schools in Brittany. France has 18,000 male ecclesiastics, and of these the greater half are engaged in training the rising generation. Of the 90,000 female members belonging to the various religious orders, one third are employed in the same way. Out of the whole number of religious, no less than 72,000 are computed to devote themselves to education, to the care of the orphans, the sick, and the aged. The pupils, the orphans, the invalids, the incurables, the helpless, the poor under the charge of the different religious societies and orders number over two millions. These are startling figures for a land where the church had been blotted out of existence eighty years ago, and where religion has ever since had to contend against special legislation, unfriendly government, and a whole host of powerful foes, never very scrupulous in the choice of their weapons.